


sentiment

by belatrix



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Choking, Denial of Feelings, Guilt, Hate Sex, M/M, Negan basically struggling with Feelings, Power Imbalance, Season/Series 07
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 21:29:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12466304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/belatrix/pseuds/belatrix
Summary: He’s been staring at Rick’s lips, at Rick’s hair, at Rick’severythingexcept his eyes. There’s something about Rick’s eyes that sucks the marrow out of him. That makes him feel stupid.[Negan, and the times Rick maybe makes him question himself. Maybe.]





	sentiment

**Author's Note:**

> _(or the one where Rick kind of bites back and Negan doesn’t want to admit he’s guilty about anything)_
> 
>  
> 
> okay I basically tripped and fell on my keyboard and this happened. I wrote most of this at 3 AM, you can _tell_ it was 3 AM because this thing is messy and all over the place, there’s not even an actual _plot _you guys, but I had to get it out because these two are giving me so many feelings. _So_ many feelings. And Negan going all “wait wait I’m the bad guy here ain’t I?” because of Rick makes me feel ALIVE.__

 

 

 

 

They’ve done this before.

“You’re a monster,” Rick tells him, voice piercing through the empty space between them like a knife. Like barbed wire. “You’re a monster,” Rick says, but Negan’s heard that so much that it doesn’t mean anything any more.

And, as an afterthought—

“What do you want?” Rick asks, and he sounds more tired than angry, more ghost than man.

Negan arches an eyebrow, because, _really_? “You don’t know?”

A beat, and Rick turns his eyes away, something like a flustered blush creeping up his neck. Of course he knows.

He seems to pull himself together, though, squaring his shoulders and looking up at Negan in that way that’s both maddening and oddly, frustratingly endearing. Not cruel —he doesn’t seem to know how to _be_ cruel— but hateful all the same. His mouth draws up into a snarl, an animal poised to attack. It makes Negan want to laugh, or maybe it makes him want to answer in kind.

Rick does this to him, sometimes; confuses him.

“It’s late,” Rick says in the end, and he seems just about ready to throw his arms up in despair. “Just take your things and go. Just— _leave_.”

And Negan, he decides to let it slide, for once. He goes.

 

 

 

 

The first self-taught lesson after the world’s officially gone to shit: you got nothing to apologize for.

The urge is there, at first. About five times. Per, maybe, day. It’s an interesting statistic, and he’s never really sat down and drawn pie charts and time tables to confirm it, but he’ll find himself facing someone with hollow eyes and a defeated voice who he probably punched in the face or said something spectacularly insulting to and it’ll be there, right on the tip of his tongue — _I’m sorry, I’m fucking sorry_.

It’s what he makes himself work on, what comes before everything else. Getting colder, harder.

He’s never been the most soulful of guys, which does make things somewhat easier. Societies fall down on themselves and he watches people wrestle with their precious humanity and chivalry and civility, and while it’s not quite MMA final rounds, it makes for a riveting show. He sees them break down over every little thing, every drop of spilled blood, every death, every day that the sun rises over a world that hasn’t magically been fixed overnight.

After a while, it’s nothing short of pathetic.

 _Survive_ becomes the verb under the spotlight. The first thing Negan does, after accepting all the terrible things the word carries with it, is take away its guilt, sweep it under the proverbial rug. Guilt is no use to anyone who plans to keep on existing.

What doesn’t adapt dies, so he adapts —he’s not going to let the world win another round. He feels like he’s lost too many matches already, the first KO bell ringing out in an antiseptic hospital room with bone-white walls that smelled like sickness and tears and a life half lived. The first human Negan kills rights the balance for Lucille’s death, and after that, the rest is easier.

And what if he starts enjoying it somewhere down the line, he keeps reminding himself it’s all part of the deal.

The thing most people don’t seem to grasp is that putting a bullet between a man’s eyes or bashing their head clean off doesn’t come as easily as it does in the movies; what’s needed is to shed morals like snakeskin, and he could probably come up with something even more poetic and soul-deep if he was that sort of guy. But if he was, he might have put the gun to his own head already and ended the misery of sentimentality a long time ago.

And he thinks that Rick, brave leader Rick trembling on his knees in the mud, wide-eyed and desperate, gets it.

When he looks up at Negan with that faraway gaze and that half-suicidal determination of his, he’s being stupid and heroic and vengeful but he _gets_ it. You have to have claws to survive in this world, in addition to the guns and the hatchets. You have to show teeth.

Negan’s damn good at showing teeth.

(Sometimes, he can barely stand to look himself in the mirror.

Sometimes he does it, and fucking _loves_ what he sees.)

 

 

 

 

Rick doesn’t seem to stand so much as to hover, coiled tight like a spring, body all tense like a bow in such a display of fight-or-flight instinct that it might have put Negan on his guard, if the situation were any different.

He’s wearing that wrinkled blue shirt of his that matches his eyes like he’s put actual thought into the whole wardrobe deal. He hasn’t, and Negan isn’t exactly sure why he notices that about him. Rick wears blue a lot these days, but he doesn’t know Negan can’t look away from him when he does, so there’s really no symbolism to be found here.

There’s something fierce about Rick as it is, about the way he levels his gaze with Negan’s, fists tightly balled at his sides like he’s trying to keep himself from throwing a punch. The whole picture of him clashes quite spectacularly with the picturesque backdrop of his kitchen, with all its clean, bright surfaces, a perfect little suburbia in the middle of a broken world. Let it not be said that Negan does not appreciate irony.

“We made an _agreement_ ,” Rick’s saying, with a hell lot of feeling. “You get our supplies, we do what you say, and you stay away from my people.”

Negan gives a very theatric sigh, just for the effect it will have on Rick. “We sure as _hell_ had a deal, partner. I promised I wouldn’t kill anyone, scout’s honor and all that. I don’t remember saying anything about joking around a little, getting some feathers ruffled.”

“ _Joking_ —”

Rick grits the word out, and then falters, seems to reconsider. His mouth closes like he’s biting down at something poisoned, and a second later he’s breathing out, slow and concentrated, the way those neat little self-help books that tell you to let go of negative emotions always advise.

Not that Negan’s _read_ those.

“I thought you wanted cooperation,” Rick says eventually, managing to sound only slightly angry. Negan decides to mark that as solid progress. “You _got_ that. No need to go around—”

“Now back the fuck up, Rick.” Negan makes sure to sound sufficiently pissed off. Rick does coil back at that, if only for the space between two breaths before he manages to regroup. It’s a damn beautiful sight. “I _do_ think someone’s getting a bit jealous, here. So what’s the deal, Rick my boy? You getting all hot and bothered seeing Lucille flirting with your merry band of asshats outside? Just askin’, ‘cause you didn’t seem _all_ that jealous the last time she got it going on with your buddies, did you?”

Which, wow, he’s an asshole. He wonders if there’s any sort of award for it, and promptly decides that there should be. Negan is often rather proud of being so self-aware.

And Rick, he clearly shares the sentiment. He looks at him like no word in any language known to man can possibly convey how much of a bastard he thinks Negan is, “I don’t care. I’m used to you getting all over me like you don’t even know what the words _personal_ and _space_ put together even mean.”

A beat too late, Negan realizes Rick’s gotten closer during his impassioned little tirade. Rick stepped forward where he’s always been stepping back, two long, purposeful strides that brought those baby blue eyes of his almost at the same line with Negan’s, and he could probably count Rick’s eyelashes from this distance if he was bored enough to want to do so.

“Rick, baby, if you want me to pay more attention to you, all you gotta do is ask.”

Rick blinks at that, teeth grinding together almost audibly. “Did you just call me baby.”

Negan smiles with teeth, because _that’s_ something Rick could interpret any way he wants. He edges half a step closer, close enough that it’d definitely be a scandal in any polite society.

Rick is remarkably proficient at holding his ground, always has been, even when shoved down in the dirt and splattered with brain soup. Negan isn’t yet sure if he loves or hates that about him, but this isn’t the time to get all philosophical over it. It is what it is, Rick’s damn good at running on anger, keeping it locked tight and simmering under flesh and bone.

“Why, did you like it?” and he says it all low and rough and suggestive, because he’s also proud of his mastered art of the mixed emotion. There are few things better than making a sweet badass like Rick all nervous and frustrated at the same time.

Rick goes quiet, looks at him for a long, long time, face almost pink.

“Can I go, now?” is what he asks, in the end. With that broken, subdued harshness of his.

Just like that, without warning, something inside Negan deflates, and he suddenly feels tired, somehow older, like he doesn’t have enough energy to deal with this —whatever the fuck _this_ is.

Rick walks away the moment he’s given permission, spine all rigid and steps long. He’s a determined, honest, hard-working leader, Rick; _I have no time for games_ , is what the taut lines of his body say as he keeps his back to Negan and steps out into the sunlight.

Well. Too bad for everyone involved that games are all Negan has, all that’s left after you’ve managed to claw your way to the top of the food chain through elimination of whoever stood in the way.

“Off you go then, baby,” Negan calls out, even though there’s no real bite in it. He loosens his grip on Lucille, and only then realizes just how tight it had been in the first place, his fingers nearly gone numb around her.

He waits, but Rick doesn’t look back.

 

 

 

 

Rick’s people… they like him. They like Rick.

They genuinely _like_ Rick.

(Because he’s nice and he’s boring and he doesn’t burn their faces off when he gets mad, probably. He squeezes their shoulders in reassurance and laughs even when their jokes aren’t funny and he apologizes even when things aren’t really his fault, and he mostly seems to know what to say to them when they need to be comforted.

 _He_ doesn’t _do_ comforting; this is not the Disneyfied version of the apocalypse, where everything gets fixed with the power of love.

He leads, he doesn’t have room for nice or corny or caring or cute. And, yeah, he knows he can maybe squeeze some niceness in there, somewhere, be more like all-beloved-Rick, bite back every third insult or lower the point price on spaghetti or something, but the thing is, he doesn’t want to.

He shouldn’t _have_ to.)

Rick’s people truly like Rick. Negan thinks about this, sometimes. Only sometimes.

 

 

 

 

“I don’t know what you think this is,” Rick’s saying, a quiet drawl, “but it ain't working, and you need to stop.”

“No idea what the fuck you talking ‘bout, Ricky.”

Negan’s tone is light and merry. His knuckles brush down Rick’s bunched up sleeve and he almost _feels_ the answering shiver, sees it travel up Rick’s steel-rod spine and shake him to the core. It makes something catch and stutter inside him, almost like he’s been knocked breathless for half a second.

He’s been staring at Rick’s lips, at Rick’s hair, at Rick’s fucking _everything_ except his eyes.

There’s something about Rick’s eyes that sucks the marrow out of him. That makes him feel stupid.

(That makes him want to do stupid things, like grab at him, or just hold him, or say he’s sorry— it’s _ridiculous_.)

“Negan,” Rick says, with a scowl and a glare that’s rather inspiring, “ _Negan_.”

Negan hopes, briefly, that the way his throat closes up at the sound of his name being growled out this way is merely a sign that he’s getting pissed off, but then he feels that damn warmth and heaviness all over and his pants are suddenly much tighter, so there’s that.

Fuck Rick and his baby blues.

“Stop,” Rick mutters, by rote, quietly. But oh so angrily.

It’s a little word like a punch to the gut, but he says it with half-conviction like he’s testing the waters, afraid of the plunge under the waves. He does keep glaring, though, and Negan wonders if Rick’s facial muscles actually hurt from all the effort he puts into those murderous smolders.

Besides, it’s getting old. He’s not _that_ bad.

It’s what he’d like Rick to believe, at the very least.

“Look,” he says, because the silence is hanging too heavy around them and something has to give, “look, I’m not fucking _doing_ anything, Rick, so you really need to calm the hell down.”

He’s almost feeling persecuted, here, can’t quite remember the last time he was the one having to defend himself in any sort of verbal confrontation. It doesn’t make sense, he thinks, not in any sense of the word, to be made to feel as though he should be _apologizing_ to Rick. Perhaps Negan’s the victim here? He wonders just how self-righteously furious Rick will get if he _dares_ to suggest as much.

Rick breathes in long and deep, and he looks worn, worn and weary and completely damn exhausted. The lines around his eyes seem to be getting deeper with every week that passes, and those around his mouth are not lines of laughter.

“Negan,” Rick says again, fucking _Je-sus_ , it’s really just a throaty exhale, “don’t hurt anyone.”

It comes out as more an order than a request, every word bitten out as if Rick’s threatening him, desperately trying to back Negan up into an invisible corner. Which is sudden and weirdly hot and altogether unacceptable.

“Listen, Rick. If you ask me fucking _nicely_ , I think maybe I won’t,” Negan concedes, very sensibly. Rick seems like the kind of guy who just loves sensible conversations, and Negan very deliberately does not think of how he’s far too closely pressed up against him for there to be anything remotely sensible about this.

Rick is silent and sufficiently stoic, his face a cold hard mask; he’s used to Negan casually pushing himself into his space, has become so acquainted with it that it’s nothing but another chore to sit through, a small storm that’ll pass. He’s not terrified, or twitching, and if he can feel the goddamn _heat_ low between their bodies where Negan’s hips are almost lined up with his, he’s stubborn enough to ignore it.

It leaves Negan high and restless and _wanting_ , feeling reckless with an impulse he has no name for. He’s definitely no fucking stranger to lust, wanting to hold someone down and be on them, in them, all over them, but this, _this_ —

He bends forward, quickly enough that it leaves no time for a flinch, and presses his mouth to Rick’s.

Rick goes still under him, his lips shut forcibly tight as his hands dart up to land against Negan’s chest.

It’s not a kiss, not really, and Negan must have been sucked by a vortex into the past or some alternate reality shit because he’s suddenly a teenager all over again, his dick in his hand and his brain turned into mush, fumbling around a warm mouth with no idea what to do or what the right thing to do even is.

There’s a steady pressure on his chest that he can barely register, Rick’s pushing at him —for a moment, just a single moment, Negan considers pinning him there and not letting go, reminding Rick just what the power balance between them really is, reminding Rick that he’s nothing, that Negan _owns_ him.

Him and his pathetic town and his pathetic people and all his pathetic shit and his pathetic blue shirts that match his blue eyes.

But he lets Rick shove him away, takes half a step back to allow them both room to breathe out in the cracked space between their mouths.

Rick looks shocked and choked and so beautifully, gloriously _shaken_ that Negan almost breaks then, almost lunges forward and pushes him up against the wall, and he smiles wide because he can’t help it.

He smiles because it’s exactly how Rick’s pretty face looked when he had that ginger’s blood sprayed across it and it’s fucked up and it’s _horrible_ , he smiles because Rick’s cheeks are flushed red and gorgeous and it’s making him go insane, he smiles because all he can do about it is smile, otherwise he’s going to shove Rick into the nearest flat surface and hold him down and fuck his _brains_ out, protests and screams be damned, and he’s going to hate himself for it.

And Rick, he stands there and stares, with his eyes that are big and blue and harsh and honest.

(All this blueness with its raw, tense honesty, it’s getting _exhausting_. How is Negan supposed to win if Rick’s giving him no game to play?)

“What—” Rick manages to say, throat all closed up, and suddenly he’s the very picture of a mightily offended Victorian housewife. So scandalized. “ _This_ is what you want?”

There’s something wrong in the way he says that last bit, though, because there should be shock making its way through Rick’s voice, coloring every word. There isn’t. Rick’s just standing there, wide-eyed and appropriately shaken, but there’s something hollow at the base of everything, something desperately resigned.

It’s not a moment of horror that Rick’s having, Negan realizes, but one of tight, weary acceptance.

It does strange things to him.

“Rick,” he breathes, like the name’s a prayer or something equally embarrassing, like Negan’s a damn lovelorn idiot instead of a guy looking to get off, and he just trails off, finds that he doesn’t really know what to say.

The things he _does_ know —he wants to grab at Rick’s perpetually sweat-drenched hair and _pull_ until Rick groans, until that long neck’s exposed and pulsing; he wants to make Rick _scream_ , from pain or pleasure or both, he can’t tell, it wouldn’t matter as long as Negan could hear that soft drawl turned snarl turned cry; he wants to push inside Rick and feel it burn, he wants to leave finger-shaped bruises on Rick’s hips, he wants to bite his lips until they’re painted red.

He _wants_.

And Rick, bless his fucking darling heart, he’s not backing away. He’s standing there waiting, lips parted on a silent exhale, and the way his hair curls at the base of his nape is such a strangely intimate, strangely fragile sight that Negan almost sighs, almost leans forward and presses his lips to the side of Rick’s throat.

“Rick,” he says again, what is _wrong_ with him, “Rick, let me.”

Rick’s lashes flutter at that, a man blinking through a haze. A quiet moment passes, and the lines of his face somehow deepen, his forehead creasing as though he’s thinking something terribly intelligent. “What?” is what he asks, unintelligently.

“ _Let me_.” Before he can comprehend, Negan’s lifted a gloved hand and he sees himself touching Rick’s collarbone before he feels it, watches as Rick sucks in a sharp breath. A finger trails down, stopping just at the knife-edge of the first button of Rick’s wrinkled shirt. “Let me, fuck, _Rick_ , let me fuck you.”

 _It’ll be good_ , he doesn’t say, _I’ll make it feel so good you’ll have my name burning down your throat for days_.

Rick clenches his jaw, like he’s contemplating doing something abrupt and violent but remembers to restrain himself. Negan could let him, he thinks, just this once. He could go with whatever Rick decides, here, as long as it ends with their clothes on the floor, and he proves as much by backing half a step away, not taking anything, waiting.

He can see the exact second the expression on Rick’s face switches. The subtle narrowing of his eyes, whatever flashes of fear and hurt might have brightened his eyes now dissolving behind something dark and curious.

“You’re asking,” Rick says, and it’s the steadiest his voice’s been all day. He still isn’t moving away, and Negan wonders if that means something significant. “You never _ask_. For anything. You always just… take.”

Negan would very much like to add that he’s getting seriously frustrated, here. No one’s ever accused him of being particularly patient, and he’s feeling like a time bomb about to go off and Rick should really, _truly_ know better than to act the damn tease by now.

“I’m not gonna have a fucking debate with you, Rick,” and _there_ , if that’s the tone the cowboy’s familiar with, let him have his way, “I want to fuck you, and I’m pretty damn sure you’re half hard too already so either let me go to town or stop wasting my time with your long sullen silences and pointless fucking questions—”

Negan stills, and he’s pretty sure his mouth is hanging open like a cartoon, because Rick cuts him off as he huffs out something that sounds like a laugh.

And then Rick _is_ laughing, actually fucking _laughing_ , low and deep and with cute little crinkles right at the corners of his eyes.

Damn.

“ _Romantic_ ,” Rick manages to get out between sucking short, gasping lungfuls of air, and it looks near hysterical. He runs a hand over his face as he somehow manages to calm down a little, and, yeah, Negan’s dick might not be as hard as it was a few seconds ago because this shit is downright _eerie_ , but he thinks he maybe wants to kiss Rick even more, now.

“Romantic as hell,” Rick says, and his grin is unsettling, messy, fucking gorgeous.

And, really, that’s how it starts. Negan doesn’t complain.

(“Tell me to stop, and I promise I will,” he says later, between a bite and a moan, “tell me to stop.”

Rick never does.)

 

 

 

 

It’s the small things that go first.

The sun rises one day and he realizes that he can’t quite get the tone of Lucille’s voice right. He repeats things she’s said to him, plays them over and over in his head, and it sounds too high, too low, too soft, too rough, never exactly the way it was.

In his memories, the accent’s always a little off, the vowels a little too dragged out to be right.

Then, he tries to remember the feel of her hand on his cheek as she kissed him good morning. Just— how exactly did her fingers splay? How much pressure? Was it her thumb or her index finger that would curl in?

Some nights he sees her in his dreams, and she’s blood-splattered and beautiful and terrible and looking at him with great sad eyes. Some nights she’s angry, and some others she’s wrapped in a hospital gown.

“You’re dead,” he tells her, and he says it again, and again, and again. “Go away.”

Rick asks him, once.

He’s in that quaint little garden he’s somehow managed to set up in his quaint little town, with dirt up to his elbows and a nasty-as-shit sunburn all down his face and neck, and he looks up, holds a hand as a shield against the sun and asks him, “who’s Lucille? You gotta have named that thing after _someone_.”

Negan doesn’t answer. Of course he doesn’t answer.

There are times when he stops and thinks that Rick Grimes is his deepest doubts incarnate, spoken aloud, which is absolutely fucking ridiculous but also strangely, alarmingly accurate.

In between all the pushing and pulling, Rick talks about love and loss and hatred, about cruelty and humanity, about horror and responsibility and loneliness and memories and this thing about existing but not living —and a small part of Negan, a part that rattles against its cage, whispers _Yes, fucking God, yes_ , even as the rest of him grins and fronts like a damn champ.

“Sentimental shit,” Negan replies, every time, and Rick just shakes his head in something like quiet defeat.

 

 

 

 

“You should’ve killed me.”

Negan halts at that, his eyebrows doing an impressive high jump up to his hairline, because _what_?

“What?”

Rick’s jaw pulses and his shoulders move stiffly into something that probably passes for a shrug in some cultures, Negan isn’t sure, “you should've killed me. Then, the first time. I should've been the one to die, not them. Not anyone.”

He looks at Negan with a good semblance of nonchalance, but the thing with his pretenses is, Negan’s getting a bit too good at seeing through them, or maybe there’s a point in there somewhere and Rick’s gotten tired of it too.

“It should’ve been me,” he says again, all empty and hollow and hoarse.

There it is, the famed fucking _guilt_ , Negan knows it, he’s got the concept, been there done that and all that. He’s got the parking ticket. It’s behind him now, he thinks he left it shriveled up and dying in a ditch somewhere as soon as he got his hands on a gun and had to learn how to use it, and use it well, to stay alive.

A man like Rick should have done the same, should have shot guilt and martyrdom and heroism right in the face —but then he wouldn’t be Rick, and that’s something Negan doesn’t want to think about, not now.

He chuckles, he’s good at this, “damn, Rick, stay the hell away from me, the every-tragedy-in-the-world-and-global-warming-is-my-fault virus might be catching.”

Rick says nothing to that, turning back to the stove and pouring canned sauce into a bowl. Negan had —very politely, he'd like to note— asked for spaghetti after casually inviting himself into Rick’s house earlier that day, and Rick had simply swallowed down nothing in that way that looked like he had a dick stuck down his throat, and quietly got to work.

Rick keeps his distance, these days, unless his kids are home. If the one-eyed pint-sized killing machine and the inhumanly adorable baby are nearby, Rick’s always putting himself between them and Negan, keeping close enough and knowing he can resist whatever Negan might say, whichever way he might find to touch him.

When it’s just him and Negan he always gravitates just out of reach, glaring and frowning and nailing his feet to the ground like he’s afraid he’ll do something terribly scandalous, like walk up to Negan and jump on his dick again.

Which, alright, Negan has maybe been trying to get him to do for weeks now, so. Not entirely unjustified.

He’s sprawled out on one of Rick’s chairs, feet propped up on Rick’s kitchen table ( _his_ chair, _his_ table, that’s the whole point here), watching Rick who’s studiously pretending not to be aware Negan’s watching him. Rick’s fingers clench and unclench around the spoons and spatulas with clockwork intervals, however, his only sign that he can feel Negan’s stare on his back; he’s good at reading Rick’s signs, he thinks he graduated with honors in the How To Tell Rick Grimes Is Contemplating Murder – Advanced Placement Class ever since he shoved Lucille into his hands and took his first test-drive stroll around Alexandria.

“You want garlic?” Rick asks as he starts adding salt, and as hard as he tries, Negan can’t help but feel something swell up inside him at the casual domesticity of the scene.

He’s sure, he _knows_ , that Rick would very much like to grab that nearby knife and shove it up Negan’s gut and watch him bleed out all over his pristine kitchen floor, but there he is, making him lunch and being sweet and pretending they never had a sweaty roll in the hay only a couple weeks ago, pretending he never bit down on his own swollen lip to keep from crying out Negan’s name, pretending Negan’s still the fucking boogeyman come to fuck all their shit up, and it’s so, _so_ —

“ _Do you want garlic, Negan_.”

Negan lets his mouth stretch into a smile, swings a careless arm over the back of the chair. “Not a good idea,” he says, “you know how bad that shit stinks. Unless you’re into smelly-breath make out sessions, in which case, it’s a great idea.”

Rick’s whole body tightens up, and he looks like he desperately wants to pinch the bridge of his nose and let out a longsuffering sigh. “We’re not gonna kiss. Not again. Not ever.”

“Suit yourself,” Negan says, shrugging, fingers drumming an abstract rhythm on the kitchen table —and because he sometimes says things he doesn’t have to say, well, “I _am_ going to get my dick wet back home, though, and my wives like me clean, you know? And I can’t very well eat pussy with my mouth smelling like garlic, ‘cause that shit would be _nasty_. Your super hot samurai girlfriend let you go down on her after you’ve eaten garlic, Rick?”

Rick’s back stiffens again in a sudden and very formidable display of anger, “don’t talk about her like that.”

“I talk about my girls like that,” Negan counters airily, and he thinks it’s a fitting answer because there’s nothing untrue about that; his wives and Rick’s lady _are_ hot, and he’s pretty sure it’s a universally known fact that women like being eaten out. Talking about that stuff is probably a symbol of affection, or something of the sort.

(It’s not a symbol of affection, because he’s certain Lucille’d have smacked him stupid if he ran his mouth around _her_ like that, but. Lucille’s dead.)

“Don’t _talk_ about it,” Rick says sharply, head snapping around, but he rears back a bit once he sees Negan’s smile widen, falling into its tried and true scalpel-edge, “just —please, just don’t.”

“Why, _Rick_. Am I sensing there’s trouble in paradise? Is that what’s going on?”

And it stings, a little, because it’s plainly, ridiculously obvious just how much Rick loves his Michonne with her truly awe-inspiring glares that rival his, and it’s plainly, ridiculously obvious just how much it fucking pains him to hear about her in any way from Negan’s mouth, and it’s plainly, ridiculously pathetic that Negan’s even _thinking_ all of this. And Negan might be kind of sorry that he can’t really be like her for Rick, just for a couple moments; not too sorry, naturally, because then he’d have to be one of the poor sad souls of Alexandria and just how _laughable_ would that be, but sorry enough because he wants Rick to want to fuck him and, yeah, he doesn’t quite have that. Yet.

“There’s nothing going on,” Rick says, and it’s even and dismissive. He turns back to his little stove, throwing a towel over his shoulder with perhaps more force than necessary. Negan watches as he rolls up his sleeves.

“Fine, Rick. You don’t wanna talk, we won’t talk. See, I can be accommodating too. _Sensitive_. Just so you know what a great fucking guy I am, once you get to know me a little better.” With that, Negan stands, pushing the chair back and picking up Lucille with a flourish, unable to stop the smirk that blooms at the corner of his mouth when he sees Rick’s wary gaze following the movement. “I’m gonna go have a little walk outside while you’re playing housewife for me, see how things are going. My guys must have gathered all my things at the gate, by now, but you can never be too sure, right?”

He grabs his leather jacket from the table and swings it over his shoulder, and tells himself he’s definitely not mockingly mirroring Rick’s domestic-dad towel. Definitely.

“Okay,” Rick says, a little tired _. Don’t go_ , he doesn’t say, so Negan can also pretend he didn’t hear.

“Make sure food’s ready by the time I swing back around,” Negan says cheerfully, shrugging on his jacket.  He isn’t sure he can stay away for too long anyway, so Rick will certainly fail at that. He winks.

Rick rolls his eyes but manages to stop himself mid-way. _Don’t go_ , he doesn’t say again. He’ll probably never say it.

Negan doesn’t care. He _doesn’t_.

 

 

 

 

Rick just won’t kiss him.

His eyes are open, forever focused on Negan’s face with a sort of animal determination. Unwavering, even as the rest of him wavers, and quite impressively so; fingers clenching, throat pulsing, hips rolling upwards to meet Negan’s thrusts.

Little breathless noises fall from Rick’s lips with every push, and even as his hand reaches up to claw long red lines down Negan’s back, even as his collarbone burns swollen with bruises and teeth marks, he still won’t kiss or let himself be kissed.

Negan’s tried, oh, he’s fucking _tried_.

His mouth traces a wet path up the side of Rick’s neck before he bites down at Rick’s lower lip —and he’d like to say he’s being gentle, here, because it’s as soft as anything Negan’s ever managed, despite his hand curling into Rick’s hair and pulling until there’s a broken gasp puncturing the air, filling Negan up, shaking him all over.

He takes it as an invitation to slide his tongue between Rick’s wet, parted lips, and that’s when Rick does it again; he lets out a sound caught between a groan and a sob and he turns his face away, pressing his cheek into the sheets as Negan keeps pushing into him, as Negan’s left trying to chase his mouth again and meets only stubble and weathered skin.

“Fuck,” Negan breathes out into the column of Rick’s throat, “really, Rick, _now_ you’re playing fucking chaste? My cock’s all the way up inside you and you’re going all Virgin Mary on me?”

Predictably, there’s no answer. Rick turns his head and glares as much as someone who’s being fucked stupid can, and when another hard thrust makes his whole body slide across the mattress he moans with something like embarrassment, but it’s still a moan, so there’s that.

Negan grins wide, but Rick’s clenching around him so _wonderfully_ and there are nails digging into his hips like they’re trying to tear him apart and inside out, and a growl tears its way from his own throat, one that Rick answers with his fingers scratching deeper, harder, angrier.

“Shit,” he groans, because it fucking _hurts_ and he wants more of it, “Rick, baby, you’re fucking killing me.”

Rick flinches at that like Negan’s physically hit him, and it’s enough to give him pause, hips stuttering to a messy halt as he props himself on his elbows and looks down at Rick, panting. There are nails still clawing into his skin, and he’s sure they must’ve drawn blood by now.

“Hey,” he says, and he’s a little disoriented because this does happen, he sometimes says shit he doesn’t mean to say when he’s balls-deep into someone and it leads to all sorts of waterworks but he could _swear_ it wasn’t anything weird this time, he could fucking swear, “what the—”

It all happens in a bit of a blur. Negan’s breath is suddenly knocked out of him and he finds himself falling over, the mattress hitting his back with a muffled thud as something snakes tightly around his throat and a shifting weight settles on top of him.

“Christ,” he breathes, looking up at Rick’s wide blue stare. It’s all sorts of angry and messed up, and Rick’s hand presses down on him, squeezing around his neck as the other reaches down between their bodies, working furiously. “Fuck, _Rick_ —”

“ _I_ ’m killing _you_?” Rick snarls, fingers tightening like a vice around Negan’s throat and his own cock, and Negan thinks he’ll start seeing stars, “I could do it, you fucking asshole, I could kill you right. Now.”

As if to emphasize his point, he brings both his hands up and pushes down harder, rough fingers enveloping Negan’s throat and crushing his windpipe —but he’s still _moving_ , little growls falling from his lips as he literally fucks himself on Negan’s cock, glaring down at him in a way that might have sent men running. Negan thinks that Good People aren’t really supposed to ever have that expression of near-gleeful hatred on their faces, ever, but Good People who’ve lived through the damn apocalypse have probably stopped being good somewhere down the line, or else, really, there’d be no one left.

He could overpower Rick, he manages to think between a raspy, breathless gasp and a hard shove into the bed, if he brought his hands up and reached Rick’s face, his blue eyes, if he put all his weight into throwing Rick off him, he probably could—

Rick moans again, a deep, guttural sound as he starts moving faster, as his fingers push down harder.

The world comes out of focus, blurring around Negan and twisting into messy little specks of dust, and he can’t fucking _breathe_ , but Rick’s so tight and warm and gloriously feral on top of him and he just, he just can’t take it. A violent shudder ripples down his spine and has his hands twitching for something to grab onto, and he thinks he can hear Rick’s growls getting more desperate somewhere in the distance, but he can see next to nothing and he’s burning all over, coming with Rick’s name flying past his lips like a curse, head thrown back into the sheets.

After it’s all washed over him, after he’s opened his eyes and finds himself wheezing in stuttering lungfuls of air, greedy and rasping, he sees that Rick’s frozen limp on top of him, unmoving for all of a moment before slumping forward, chest crushing heavily against Negan’s.

Their lips come terribly, teasingly close; both panting white-hot breaths over one another, Negan inching upwards to close the miniscule gap, and their mouths do touch for the space of half a second before Rick pulls himself away, turning over and letting his body fall heavily on the other side of the bed, flinging an arm over his face, covered in a sheen of sweat.

Negan’s left staring at Rick’s half-hidden profile, his heaving chest, the way his hair curls damply like ink stains on the white sheets. He chokes out a laugh that’s half a cough, “damn, Rick. Fucking damn. That really was something.”

And, wow. He sounds like a walker with a nicotine addiction. He almost coughs again, but manages to bite it back down before the whole situation gets any more melodramatic.

“Shut up,” Rick mutters, low and muffled by his forearm. He’s breathing hard, sweaty and exhausted, but his hands are slack and blood is rushing back to his fingers that had gone white with their death hold around Negan’s throat. “Just be quiet, for once, _please_. Don’t talk.”

Negan shifts a little, feels every place where the sheets are sticking to his body with sweat and come. “You really needed that,” he says, very companionably, in his best we-didn’t-just-have-a-murderous-fuck-fest voice. He thinks he’s been getting better at it, these days.

Rick hums something unintelligible and pushes himself on his elbows, finally deigning to look down at Negan. His eyes are calmer, somehow paler, and he seems half-broken now, only moments after he’d been the one doing all the breaking. “You don’t really think I believe you let yourself be choked half to death ‘cause _I_ needed that.”

Negan shrugs dispassionately, and it’s a good time to get off the bed now because Rick definitely won’t want anything to do with _cuddling_ , “maybe.”

The thing is, he doesn’t know. Maybe he did let it happen, maybe he didn’t, it’s not like anyone particularly cares, anyway, and it’s probably one of those great mysteries of sex and life that are supposed to remain unsolvable, otherwise they’d lose all their charm.

He sits up, looking at Rick trying not to look at the mess he’s left across Negan’s stomach, and offers his widest, friendliest grin. “You gotta admit, baby, that was pretty fucking nice of me to do.”

Rick merely blinks at that, slow and really quite comical, before he huffs out something that sounds less like a laugh than Negan’s own wheezing half-coughs. “You are… _delusional_ , Negan. You’re —God, d’you think I should thank you for your generosity and bow down to your existence for this?”

Negan kind of does, to be honest, but he feels sated and tired and light-headed enough that he decides not to press it. Not now. There’s no need. He gets up on only slightly wobbly legs, and it’s a good thing Rick’s still stubbornly looking away, “you should be thanking me for not beating the shit out of you for the way your sweet mouth turned all dirty back there, though. You _know_ I don’t let anyone talk to me just like you did, don’t you Rick?”

Again, Rick huffs, and this time it maybe sounds higher up on the scale of maybe-laughter. “You know, you’re like a cat,” he says, soft and sort of unfocused. There’s orange sunlight tangled in his hair, washing over his face like a transparent sort of liquid flame lapping at the skin. “The kinda cat that kills a mouse and leaves it on your doorstep like it’s some gift. And expects a pat on the head or somethin’.”

“Am I now.” Negan starts looking around the room for a towel, mind only half-focused. “Well, thing is, you do feel a hell lot better now, Rick, so,” he tips off an imaginary hat as Rick shakes his head, “glad to be of service.”

Rick stays quiet, folded into himself on the bed like he’s trying to put the scattered parts of himself back together again. He’s staring out into nothing, such a wholly different person from the one who held Negan pinned down and shoved and growled and scratched, that it almost throws Negan off-kilter, for a moment, almost has him make a double-take. But then he remembers Rick that first night, Rick’s violently trembling body and his _face_ as he held that hatchet over his kid’s arm, and—

—and he turns his attention back to searching for his clothes and the towel, because he can’t —he _will not_ — deal with that shit right now.

He doesn’t need sentiment; he doesn’t need it, want it, or have any room for it.

He almost closes the space to the bed, almost bends down to give Rick a parting kiss, but he knows what the response would be, so he just pulls on his pants and shirt and beams down at Rick who keeps sitting motionless, blue gaze hazy. “Until next week, sweetheart,” he says, picking up his belt.

Rick sighs, a little, but it’s so faint that it might have been Negan’s own imagination. He doesn’t quite trust himself with Rick, lately.

“Yeah,” Rick says, so low it’s more whisper than anything else. “Next week.”

 

 

 

 

They’ve done this before.

“You’re a monster,” Rick says, but his voice is a soft drawl that catches and falters as Negan slides a hand low and hooks his fingers under the hem of Rick’s blue shirt that matches his blue eyes. “You’re a monster,” Rick says, but Negan’s heard that so much that it doesn’t mean anything anymore.

Negan just moans quietly against Rick’s skin, pulling him closer as much as he can.

“Not really,” he says, and Rick pulls a little away, always pulling a little away. Negan isn’t sure what he’d do with a Rick who didn’t pull a little away, every time, just a little bit.

“Right,” Rick says, breathless. And, as an afterthought— “Prove it, then.”

Negan looks at him for a long, stretching moment before leaning forward and pressing their lips softly together. This time, Rick lets him. _Prove it_ , he said, and Negan—

—for Rick, he thinks briefly, for Rick he might be willing to try.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
